diary of a tortured soul
by sk8ter
Summary: first part of my diary of a British soldier in the WW1, couldnt find any other place for it, please RnR, its my first fanfic


_**Dear Diary**_

I have just lived the worst few days of my life so far in this mess of a war. I feel exhausted, cold, ill, homesick, hungry, thirsty, sad and filthy. I went through all that brutal training just to sit in a freezing cold mud bath all day, watching the victim's of trenchfoot being carried away on stretchers and my friends being killed off one by one. I can't begin to describe how much I've changed already and how much I miss my dead comrades, my friends. We first came into the trenches at about 3pm on Friday. Everybody was in the damp and dark dugout, freezing, trying to get some sleep whilst German mortars and artillery crashed and thundered around our trench. When we stepped in I was waist deep in muddy water. As we made our way to through the trench the cold rain hammered on our helmets and soaked us to the skin. The trench stinks of rotting flesh and vomit, there are dead bodies absolutely everywhere, most of them almost buried by mud, with their limbs or faces ghoulishly sticking out of the walls of the trench. I felt frogs swimming around my legs and red slugs clung to the sides of the trench. But worst of all was the shells coming from the Germans. In the Films back at home an explosion is just a big puff of dust and dirt. In real life when a shell comes over it sounds like a freight train, it explodes like white-hot thunder and sends hot ashes flying everywhere. The shells and 'whiz-bangs' as we soon learned to call them, never stopped coming that night. When we finally made it into the dugout, my heart had sunk like at shot down ship. The posters, the teachers, the poems had lied about the war. They said it was easy; they treated it like a game. But this was no game. In the dugout, everybody looked exhausted; their faces were pure white. I tried to get some sleep, but I couldn't. My mind was in overdrive; I couldn't stop thinking about home, my family- what if I were to die? What would happen to me? I wished that this was all just a dream; I would wake up in my bed and tell Jilly that I had a strange dream over breakfast. I got up the next day from the cold hard ground to be greeted by a huge black rat. I tried to get it with my bayonet, but it scuttled off. We then had our regular 'stand-to-arms.' We readied our weapons and stood on the trench fire step, Lee Enfield rifle aimed at the enemy trench, in case there was an attack. The strange thing is, the Huns do this the same time as us, so to relive the tension both sides start firing. Machine gun fire was emptied at the sides of the trenches, the bullets screamed through the air and chewed the bricks, dirt and sand bags near the edges of the trench, rifle bullets whizzed like bees over people's heads, shells tore through the air smashed inches away from our trench, I was showered in hot dirt. After an hour and a half, everybody finally stopped; it was then I found out about Gambleman. He had been hit by a piece of shrapnel; it had got him right in the chest. The ever-happy Gamble, who was always making jokes, laughing and smiling, was on the ground, crying and screaming in pain. We all tried to make him calm down so the medics could take him to the ward, but it wasn't working. It was his shock that killed him more than the shrapnel. After thirty agonizing minutes, he finally died. His death had come so soon, it was such a shock. I don't think I'm ever going to be able to get that haunting picture of a blood covered Gambleman out of my mind. We asked a couple of the guys who had been on the front for months what to do with his corpse. We decided together that two of us would go out and bury him in no mans land. We just had to get permission from Sgt Gordon, the person in charge of things around here. His name alone sickens me to the pits of my stomach for what he has put me and my comrades through. He came out of the dugout looking very annoyed that we had disturbed him. He shouted and ranted that we couldn't go out and bury him, that it would be a waste of valuable time; we should just throw him in a shell hole and let the mud bury him. He made Gambleman seem like dirt, he treated a good mans death like a fly fluttering around his face, annoying him. Oh how I hate that man. After we had collected our rations, we were assigned our jobs for the day. Me, Bill, Sam and James had to throw all of the rainwater out of the trench. The pumps were destroyed in a shelling, so all we had were two cheap plastic buckets. And every hour or so the Germans would start firing their five-nines at us, and we would give them something back too. It was the most miserable thing I have ever done. By the end of the day my legs were numb and my clothes were heavy from all the mud and water. It was horrible. That night in the dugout Sam and Bill, the people who at training were always up for a fight, always ready for a scrap, were whimpering in the corner, due to the huge oversized mutated rats that ran around the cold floor. I could barley get any sleep because of my horrendous lice bites that I had got that day; I was itching all over constantly. The whiz-bangs and shells had started again, and my ears were ringing. When I finally did get to sleep, I dreamt of throwing Sgt Gordon into a shell hole and leaving him to die, the way he had done to Gambleman. The following day, after stand-to-arms, we were assigned our daily jobs again by. Miller and smith had to repair the barbed wire, Campton, Mark and Harvey had to refill some sandbags, Max, Chris and Bradshaw had to repair the broken duckboards on the floor of the trench… and finally me Bill, Sam and James had to drain out the trenches with nothing but buckets. Again. To tired to complain, we set off, in water that no matter how hard we worked, still never seemed to get any shallower. Mid-afternoon, Bill broke down in tears "I can't feel my legs" he cried over and over again "I'm going to die!" He went into a major panic attack, he started puking and choking, we needed desperately to get him over to the medical ward. Sam screamed as loud as he could for a stretcher, one came over a couple of seconds later. When they were just about to take him away, Sgt Gordan rushed over. He shrieked at the stretcher-bearers to put him down and for all three of us to get back to work. Words cannot describe the feelings I felt at this point. Me and Sam desperately argued for Bill, but he didn't take any of it. When we refused to work for him to at least be able to skip his chores, he grudgingly agreed to let Bill sit this one out in the dugout. When we came back in the evening working, he was lying there; eyes wide open, not moving. It was clear to us what had happened. I fell to my knees in tears. I don't know why I had volunteered for this. I don't know why. I could be sitting down right now, listening to the radio with Jilly, knowing that all my friends are there whenever I need them. But no. Instead I'm standing here, watching all my friends kill or be killed. War is so unfair.When Sam had seen what had happened to Bill, he couldn't take it. He rushed over to Sgt Gordon, screaming and crying, and with trembling fists, punched him hard in the face. When I saw what was going on, fuelled by anger, I ran over to help Sam, but before I could do anything, Gordon was up on feet again, with his revolver pointed straight at Sam's face. Sam stopped dead in his tracks, looking Gordon in the eye, his teeth gritted in anger. I went to Gordon and spat in his face. He swung round and pushed the gun into my neck, his demon eyes filled with hatred. " You" he said to Sam " are going to be court-marshalled and shot. And you" He said looking at me "are going out on patrol tonight" Not knowing what I was in for, I took my punishment gladly. When the time came for the patrol, I was slightly nervous. " Were going to crawl out into a shell hole, wait for the German patrol to come and scupper it" Compton had said, the leader of the patrol. We had crawled out into no mans land in the dead of night, when all you could her was the frogs croaking, and the booms of distant guns. We slowly crawled across the muddy ground, like a like a snake slithering through the shadows of the night, and found the perfect shell hole to hide in. We all crawled in and waited, like a patient tiger, waiting quietly in the darkness and at the best moment, striking out at its prey. Nobody talked. Nobody moved. We just waited.After a while, it started raining heavily, and our shell hole began to fill up with muddy rain. We were soon up to our necks in cold, muddy rainwater. It was disgusting, but none of us could do anything about it. We finally spotted the enemy patrol, just coming behind us. We couldn't shoot at them, because that would get the attention of enemy machine guns and snipers, so Compton said we would have to go out and fight, hand-to-hand, the traditional way. When I carefully climbed out of the flooded shell hole, I heard a gurgling sound behind me. I looked round to see one of the patrol members drowning in the rainwater, weighed down by his equipment. I crawled over to try and help him, but Compton held me back. " We cant help him" he whispered, "we cant afford to let the enemy patrol escape, we just cant" I didn't know what to do, we couldn't just leave him there to die, we couldn't. "Now!" Compton whispered angrily " I'm sorry but we can't afford to let the patrol escape!" I cried silently as I watched his hands reaching out, trying to grasp the edges of the hole and pull himself out, and as I heard his muffled screams for help. "Come on!" Compton half shouted. I looked at him again. His arms weren't moving this time. I slowly crawled away to Compton and the others as they moved towards the Germans, crying. Why, why was this happening, why? I thought. I'm a good man, ive not done much wrong, why? Why me? I cursed the Germans for making me come here and watch my friends die. It was the Germans who did this. Filled with anger, I checked that my bayonet was fixed and readied myself to kill. " Go get them boys!" Compton screamed. " I charged towards them, hollering and yelling, I don't know what had happened to me at the time, but I now know that that was the point were I became a real soldier. When the Germans saw us they got up and ran at us, cursing in their own language. When we met, all hell broke loose. The sounds of screaming and cursing in different languages poisoned the air, the sight of young men slashing and hacking at each other with bayonets, beating other men of their age, some even younger, mercilessly to the ground was horrific. I swung my bayonet viciously at an enemy soldier; he dodged the blow and kicked me in the stomach. I fell to the ground in pain, the German flung at me again with his blade; it missed my ear by inches. I tripped him up and rolled on to him, holding him down with my legs, punching him with all my strength and hate, he whimpered and cried out for me to stop, but I carried on emotionlessly. Suddenly, he reached out for a rock in the ground, found one and hit me brutally hit me. I felt blood trickle down my face, I was dizzy with pain. As the soldier regained his bayonet, I looked into his hate-filled eyes and thought I was a dead man. But then, as if from out of nowhere, I blade struck him in the neck, killing him instantly. His body fell to the ground to reveal a wounded Compton, who was covered in Bayonet cuts. Trembling, he fell to the ground, dead. The snipers were blasting bullets all over the place, but because of all the motion, always missed. My head was incredibly painful; I slowly began to crawl back to our trench, there was no way I could carry on fighting like this. But then, the dreaded artillery started. Shells came flying over from the enemy trench, I threw myself into a hole and took cover, as the shells crashed everywhere like lightning, the ground trembled and shook; panicked screams were scarcely heard among the booms and bangs. I lay there in the shell hole and closed my eyes, trying not to think of fighting, of war, of shells, of dying, of everything. I gritted my teeth and prayed, prayed that god would let me die somewhere other than this muddy field in the middle of Belgium. Anywhere. I sat there for what felt like forever, hungry and thirsty, listening to the moans and cries of wounded troopers and waiting for the opportunity to risk climbing back our trench. The intensity of the shelling died down, but they still fired their five-nines at us. The following night, when it was all clear, I finally braved it. The trek across No Mans Land was something I never want to do again. I pulled myself through the slime and mud, clambering over rotting, maggot riddled corpses, vomiting every few minutes was dreadful. After fifteen minutes, I gave up all hope of coming out of the war alive. I wanted to die; I wanted all of the suffering to stop. I lay there, all the morale I once had completely destroyed. My thoughts began to drift to Jilly, and how good and faithful she had been to me, how it would break her heart if I died. No, I couldn't die. I couldn't let Jilly go through so much pain; she didn't want to have anything to do with the war. With all the strength I could muster, I crawled desperately through the rotting wasteland and finally reached our trench. When my comrades found me, I collapsed with weariness and fell asleep. When I woke up, I found out that Sam had been court-marshalled and shot, and Sgt Gordon had sadistically made James give the fire order. When I heard that news, it felt like a thousand sharp knives stabbed into my heart. War is so unfair. And so few people realise it.


End file.
